Salt dough Easter ornaments

I found a set of Easter-themed cookie cutters at Spotlight recently, and knew they’d be perfect to make some salt dough ornaments to hang on our Easter advent tree.

This is one of our favourite go-to activities that we’ve done several times now. The kids really enjoy the process of making the dough, cutting out shapes, and then decorating them once they’re baked hard. It’s easy to theme the activity to a current holiday, too. (What can I say – I’m an ex-teacher, I love my themes!)

Simple salt-dough recipe:

1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup water
20g (1 tbs) oil

1. Mix all ingredients together and knead.
2. Roll out quite thinly and cut into shapes. If you’ll be hanging these, make sure to punch a hole with a skewer or straw before you bake.
3. Bake at 120°C (250°F) for 4-6 hours or overnight – until hard.

Once the shapes were done baking, I mixed up some Easter colours by adding a lot of white to our usual kids’ paints to create a more pastel shade. Then we got painting!

Our shapes turned out quite puffy this time, which I’ve never seen happen before – they’re usually flat. I fudged the quantities a bit because I couldn’t find my regular recipe, and then baked them for only 3 hours, so it was probably a combination of those factors. (I found my tried-and-true recipe after the fact, so at least they’ll turn out fine for you guys!)

I do recommend the longer baking time (6 hours to overnight) – this batch softened quite a bit in just a couple of days. When I bake them longer, they’re still hard as rock even months down the track.

Allegra enjoyed the painting too!

Such concentration! I was pretty surprised by how little mess she made, considering her age (she’s 21 months old).

I also gave the kids cotton buds so they could add a few spots or squiggles to decorate…

We left the paint to dry, then it was time for phase two – glitter!

At this stage, some of you are thinking for sure I’m a crazy-woman. Three preschool age kids with paint and glitter? Am I on crack?

No… I promise I’m not. (Ex art-teacher, remember?) I’ve heard glitter referred to as the herpes of art supplies. But really… it’s just about containment.

Best tip: Give each kid a baking tray with sides to put their salt-dough shapes in.

We started by using a cotton bud to draw some simple designs in PVA glue:

Then I showed the kids how to gently tap their shaker to sift glitter onto the shapes.

Then the kids tapped their ornament against the tray to knock off the excess glitter, and at the end we just tipped that extra glitter straight into the bin. Easy peasy!

While all this was going down, I put Allegra in her highchair with her salt-dough shapes and some felt-pens – a big treat for little Miss Likes-to-draw-on-the-walls.

This is the face of happiness right here:

That kept her occupied for ages – right up until the boys were done!

The last step was to add a loop of ribbon and hang them on our easter advent tree. The kids have been loving opening an advent egg each night and reading the message inside. Now, as the countdown continues and our eggs grow more sparse night by night, our tree will no longer be left looking forlorn and bare.

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and blessed Easter, and to thank you for your readership so far this year. I’ll be back after a short Easter break with the long-awaited house tour of our new abode (which I’ve had to split into separate posts due to the mass quantity of photos I have to share with you guys!) Can’t wait!

What are your plans for Easter? I’d love for you to share in the comments.

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